Parenthood never ends

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Visit to the Obstetrician

While we’re on the topic of obstetrics, allow me to digress a little. Many (if not all) Singaporeans refer to their obstetrician as their “gynae”, short for gynaecologist. While most modern obstetricians are gynaecologists since they are such related field, using the term gynaecologist is not technically correct when visiting the same specialist as a pregnant lady seeking care for mother and fetus. Wikipedia’s definition of obstetrics and gynaecology are set out below for reference.

Obstetrics: The surgical specialty dealing with the care of women and their children during pregnancy (prenatal period), childbirth and the postnatal period

Gynaecology: The medical practice dealing with the health of the female reproductive system (uterus, vagina and ovaries)

Therefore, my dearest fellow Singaporeans, next time I speak of a visit to my obstetrician, please do not use the word gynaecologist/gynae 3x in your reply hoping I will thereby realise and correct my “error” because I won’t.

So, on to today’s visit. Nothing really major actually. Christine asked her usual questions about symptoms, movement etc and did her scan. According to her dating the fetus size is approximately in the 50% percentile, even though the SGH lady commented that our baby is large for a caucasian baby and mumbled something about diabetes.

I finally stepped on a weighing scale for the first time in 2 months and am (semi) proud to report that my weight gain is approximately 7kgs. A little above my target of 1 per month at the 6th month, especially since most put on more in the last trimester, but still acceptable. Just need to control my diet more.

On cordblood, her views are that if we have the money to set aside and feel that we want to do it there is no harm, but she likens it to asking her whether we should buy a shortwave radio in case of war. I.e. the chances of using it is so small. Moreover, apparently some experts are also of the view that greater differentiation is better for stem cell therapy so, provided a match can be found the the public bank, its probably the better route.

On hospitals, realised she actually meant she only delivers at SGH and Mt Elizabeth, for the rest she will request another O&G to do the delivery. In that case I think I will pick between SGH and Mt E. Wouldn’t want someone I haven’t done due diligence on to deliver for me. We’ll see how our impression of Mt E is like when we go for the tour and if we’re not blown away then maybe go with SGH since its nearest and therefore least chance of being stuck in a jam. Public hospitals also actually have the advantage of having specialists on standby all the time.

The last notable thing is that this morning’s urine test recorded a positive again. Damn, which means there’s a chance I do have gestational diabetes so she’s putting me through the test at week 28. Fingers crossed! I don’t want to have to prick my fingers daily for the rest of the pregnancy. Human beings are not wired to inflict pain on ourselves.

The nurse gave me some anmum samples just before I left which I’m really happy about. I tried samples of Anmun and Similac Mum from the maternity tours and of S-26 at a Stemcord event and liked Anmum best because its the least sweet. No idea why the rest had to make their formula sickeningly sweet, especially since pregnant women are already prone to diabetes as it is. If any of the formula manufacturers is reading this, the samples really help, I bought a box of Anmum and I only picked among those I have tried because the last thing I want would be to buy a huge tin and decide I can’t take it. I wonder whether the vanilla flavoured ones can be used to make bread, really dumb to buy milk powder just to add a tablespoonful or so into the bread machine to make bread.